Cultivate relationships, not transactions

Over at the complete innovator, a fantastic site where they consistently come up with high quality editorial, they recently published a piece on secrets to corporate authenticity. It gives a real insight into how companies should operate. For a business in its infancy (as watchmethink is) this is a ‘must read’ piece.

For us here at watchmethink, we’re about to take points 4 and 5 to the extreme.

Point 4 – be transparent. Treat your social world as if they’re an integral part of your company. Let them know early when good news is underway, and apologize early when you screw up. Open up to your community and they’ll reward you with understanding, forgiveness, and loyalty.

Point 5 – cultivate relationships, not transactions – treat the communities you interact with as if they were integral partners in your company’s success and not just simply a transaction source. Care about them, ensure they get value out of the relationship then have with you, and make sure the flow of information and value goes both ways.

Our focus is on making our community our company… and not just via lip service (which is so often the case), but genuinely. They will feel part of the company, they will feel part of a tribe and as such their interaction with us will be a true partnership.

More on this later, but our set up combines all the facets of community that everyone has been reading about for months – we’ve acted upon it, and we’re hoping to create a period of change and huge excitement as we prepare to take this to market for 2011.